Ban on Births

"Family planning depends on discipline," Karan Singh, India's Minister of Health and Family Planning, warned Parliament in January. "If the discipline is not self-inspired, it may have to be imposed." Last week the Indian government decided that self-discipline would not curb India's burgeoning population, which at the present birth rate will reach 1 billion by the year 2000. The government announced a plan to penalize city government employees and other residents of New Delhi who do not limit their families to two children.

Under the program, couples with two children who do not agree to sterilization for one spouse will lose their rights to a wide range of government benefits, from public housing to government jobs and loans. Couples who do comply, however, will be given preferential treatment in employment, housing and free medical treatment in government hospitals.

The curbs are expected to be extended to government employees across the country. In addition, the state of West Bengal is considering making sterilization mandatory for couples of childbearing age who have three children. Violators would be liable to fine or imprisonment. It is doubtful that the Indian government would ever go that far on a national level because of enforcement problems. One of the most difficult tasks will be to make family-planning programs effective in rural villages, where high infant-mortality rates have led to large families to ensure that some children will survive to care for the parents in their old age.

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